A publication is a distinct text or graphic-based work, in whatever medium and whatever format, made available to a public wider than the publishing institution. It must have identifiers like an international standard number and/or a catalogue number.
Publications can be:
Studies, reports, factsheets, magazines, newsletters, posters including maps (minimum A3), bookmarks, postcards, flyers (single unfolded sheet <A3), leaflets (2–16 pages folded unbound), books/editions (bound >8 pages), folders, info packs, eBooks, audiovisual material, mobile apps, dynamic data visualisation, etc.
(Information provided by the Publications Office of the European Union).
Ensuring consistency in the way we identify and present publications on official Commission EU and EC websites helps the audience:
Do not upload Publications directly on your website. To ensure consistency and security on the official EU and EC websites, upload the publication to its dedicated repository and add a link to this repository from your website. For more information on the topic, please refer to this guide’s section about file formats.
The Publications Office of the European Union is an inter-institutional office whose mandate is to manage and disseminate the publications of the institutions of the European Union (Decision 2009/496/EC, Euratom).
Its core activities include:
Get an official identification/catalogue number for your publication
For any publication, ask the Publications Office for international standard numbers and/or catalogue numbers, and give the Office an electronic version of your publication (in whatever format) as well as two paper copies of the publication where appropriate for archiving.
Mandatory and non mandatory publications
The Publications Office mandate defines two categories of publications (article 2.3 and 2.4):
Publications of the EU institutions, agencies and bodies produced by the Publications Office (OP) are automatically disseminated via the OP portal, on the EU Publications website.
In the case of publications not produced with the Publications Office, you must:
The Publications Office will still ensure cataloguing and publication on the OP portal as well as dissemination via partner services and archiving.
Use the dedicated web tool to embed OP publications on your website. Guidance is available on the OP portal.
If your site is developed with the corporate web development platforms (Europa Web Publishing Platform or Open Europa), you must use content types- templates to add publications to the site:
Create a publication-listing page if:
Please refer to this guide’s section about legal notice and copyright.
If you need further assistance on the topic, please contact the accessibility expert team of the Publications Office: OP-ACCESSIBLE-PUBLICATIONS@publications.europa.eu.
The Publication Office of the European Union which registers publications and manages few official repositories:
Other Corporate repositories:
Need further assistance on this topic? Please contact the team in charge of the Europa Domain Management (EU Login required).
The Europa Web Guide is the official rulebook for the European Commission's web presence, covering editorial, legal, technical, visual and contractual aspects.
All European Commission web sites must observe the rules and guidelines it contains.
Web practitioners are invited to observe its contents and keep abreast of updates.
More information about the web guide.